“Agriculture… What a fickle industry to be involved in, and after all the wine industry is an agricultural industry, given that winemakers are only as good as the fruit that a viticulturist provides them.
Three weeks ago there was much collective gnashing of teeth and increasingly furrowed brows amongst winemakers as the rain tumbled down in the Hunter Valley for the fifth day in a row. Dire forecasts were being bandied about.
Then the rain stopped. The sun came out. However it wasn’t the usual late January forty degrees.
It was a temperate 26-28 degrees, cool by Hunter Valley vintage standards, and there was a good strong breeze, drying out the tightly bunched fruit avoiding what seemed inevitable disease..’’